Look, we can debate the proper and private way to do Captchas all day, but if we remove the existing implementation we will be plunged into a world of hurt.
I run tucson.social - a tiny instance with barely any users and I find myself really ticked off at other Admin’s abdication of duty when it comes to engaging with the developers.
For all the Fediverse discussion on this, where are the github issue comments? Where is our attempt to convince the devs in this.
No, seriously WHERE ARE THEY?
Oh, you think that just because an “Issue” exists to bring back Captchas is the best you can do?
NO it is not the best we can do, we need to be applying some pressure to the developers here and that requires EVERYONE to do their part.
The Devs can’t make Lemmy an awesome place for us if us admins refuse to meaningfully engage with the project and provide feedback on crucial things like this.
So are you an admin? If so, we need more comments here: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3200
We need to make it VERY clear that Captcha is required before v0.18’s release. Not after when we’ll all be scrambling…
EDIT: To be clear I’m talking to all instance admins, not just Beehaw’s.
UPDATE: Our voices were heard! https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3200#issuecomment-1600505757
The important part was that this was a decision to re-implement the old (if imperfect) solution in time for the upcoming release. mCaptcha and better techs are indeed the better solution, but at least we won’t make ourselves more vulnerable at this critical juncture.
Guess I best get over there then. Sounds like a place to voice my concerns without resorting to public appeals.
I can be working with a small set of independent instance admins (brought together by a newer instance and discussions mostly through discord) and I’ve helped them test a few things and our little discord meta-community is already constructing new features, auto-posting bots of different types (RSS feeds, even posts, etc), and a few other things.
However, this is different from “Most Admins” where my interactions are largely based in the meta/support channels for other instances. This is a much more confusing population to me since many were exposed to the entire “Lemmy is for Authoritarian Communists” that was making the rounds on reddit. It’s resulted in a newer cohort of Admins that aren’t nearly as friendly to the development team.
Nah, I would’ve made the change myself, but it wouldn’t do a darn thing because it depends on the inherent security of less technical admins. This project is as much impacted by individual decisions as they are collective ones.
And until the maintainers changed their mind, they likely wouldn’t have allowed a resurrection of the old Captcha anyways - so your point about another person “doing the work” only was really possible once the maintainers communicated that it was acceptable. Because, as stated in my previous point, an individual instance with this change (reverting captcha) doesn’t protect them from instances that don’t.
This all points back to my original point which revolves around new admins understanding the importance of engaging the maintainers and making themselves heard. The fact that people who already do this took offence to my post is a little bizarre because I’m clearly not talking about the people who haven been communicating.
Sure, those who’ve been with the Fediverse for a bit are familiar with Matrix and how to use it to communicate back to the core developers. But the new influx of instances and their admins either A - don’t know where to go, B - don’t care, or C - are so ideologically opposed to the rumors they want nothing to do with them.